Reveals history of concentration camps from 1890s Cuba to China and North Korea during the Cold War, discussing their use for civilian relocation and exposing their role as dehumanizing sites for political repression that have claimed millions of lives.

For over one hundred years, at least one concentration camp has existed somewhere on earth. First used as battlefield strategy, camps have evolved with each passing decade, in the scope of their effects and the savage practicality with which governments have employed them. Andrea Pitzer reveals for the first time the chronological and geopolitical history of concentration camps.